Darkest Before Dawn
by The Nature Of Randomness
Summary: After years of being put down and feeling unloved, Eunice finds herself in Happy Volts Asylum and discovers that things may not be bad as she thought. Eunice/Gary oneshot. AU. No dialogue.


Well, here's my latest bit of Bully fanfiction. I know I should be working on some of my in-progress fics instead of starting something new, but this idea popped into my head the other day and I just had to write it down.

I've always felt a little bit bad for Eunice and wanted to tell a story from her point of view. I wrote this as an AU, but you can interpret it however you want because it takes place before the events in the game. I've never written anything with absolutely no dialogue before, so I hope it came out okay. It's actually a Eunice/Gary fic of all things. The characters may be slightly out of character, but I tried not to go overboard with it. Also note that Happy Volts is portrayed in a more positive light than it is in the game and most fanfics.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bully or anything else you recognize.

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Eunice had never had it easy. Even before the day she was born, her life had been filled with unfairness and misery.

It all started when the second baby disappeared during her mother's pregnancy. Kathleen Pound had been overjoyed when her first two ultrasounds revealed twins growing in her womb. She was shocked when the third ultrasound showed only one baby. Her doctor explained that the smaller twin had died for some reason—most likely a lack of space or adequate nutrition due to the other twin—and had been reabsorbed by her body. Kathleen knew that it wasn't the remaining twin's fault; fetuses aren't capable of murder, after all, but her heart was immune to logic and she knew that she'd never be able to look at her new child without thinking of the faceless, nameless one who had died.

It didn't help her case any when Eunice turned out to be a rather large baby. She was born via c-section and weighed over ten pounds. She was a big eater, and quickly gained weight after birth. She grew into a chunky toddler, a portly pre-schooler, and eventually an obese kindergartener.

It went against her family's genes: her mother, father, and two older siblings were toothpicks. Only Eunice was heavy, and it was a source of great concern and embarrassment to them all. Her brothers teased her mercilessly. Her mother was not-so-secretly ashamed to be seen with her in public—she didn't want to look like a bad mother after all, overfeeding her child—and tried everything she could think of to get Eunice to lose weight, putting her young daughter on diet after diet after diet. Eunice was probably the only 5 year old in her class who knew what calories and carbohydrates were (things to be avoided at all costs!). The pediatrician suggested signing her up for sports, but Eunice had no interest in any of them and quickly got herself booted off all of the teams that her mom signed her up for. Her father was the only one who never said anything about her size outright; still, it was no secret that he would bring home sugary treats for the other children from time to time, but never any for Eunice.

By the time she reached middle school, Eunice had undoubtedly become the black sheep of her family. It was plain for her to see that they didn't love her, not really. They all blamed her for everything that went wrong and usually ignored her the rest of the time. Her mother would smile and say something nice if she mentioned wanting to try a new diet or losing five pounds, but most of the time she simply snubbed the girl who was her youngest child and greatest disappointment. If Eunice put on a few pounds or mentioned needing new jeans because hers had worn out in the thighs, everyone in the family looked at her in disgust, as if she'd just announced that she was going out to do some shoplifting. It was like some twisted game they all played: convince Eunice we'll love her if she loses weight, belittle her if she doesn't appear to be trying hard enough. Five points for comparing her to a pig, ten for mentioning a TV show about people overcoming weight issues, twenty for offering her a bite of your ice cream and then retracting the offer with a reminder that she doesn't really need it. First person to reach 100 points gets a trophy!

For years, Eunice played along. She wanted to be accepted by her family. She wanted to have friends at school. Someday she wanted to get married, but even then she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to marry her. She certainly didn't get any positive attention from the boys at school. Other girls her age were going on their first dates and getting their first kisses. Eunice was only ever asked out as a joke when someone was dared to ask her.

She tried sticking to diets, but it was hard. One month she would try low-carb, the next month low-fat, and the month after that she did her best to eat nothing but cabbage soup. It didn't work. She couldn't stick to the diets long enough for them to do any good, and her family's constant nagging almost made her not want to. Besides, food often felt like her only friend in the world. Eunice had discovered at an early age that eating could make her happy again if she was sad, distract her if she was bored, calm her down if she was nervous, make her feel better if she was ill, and more. Eunice liked eating; it was both as simple and as complicated as that.

After she graduated from 8th grade, Eunice was faced with what was to become a life-altering situation. Her parents sat her down at the kitchen table and told her that she would be going to a boarding school called Bullworth Academy for high school. It wasn't the year-round equivalent of weight loss camp per se, but it had a pretty good track record of helping kids slim down, among other things.

At first Eunice had almost been excited. Here was her chance to get away from her family! She'd be on her own and get to make her own decisions. And heck, maybe it really would help her lose weight. She imagined her new, skinny, beautiful self coming home for summer break; pictured all of the kids who had teased her so cruelly falling at her feet in adoration. She'd ignore them all, of course, or maybe ask an especially obnoxious boy to be her boyfriend and then laugh in his face. It would be great!

That night she researched Bullworth Academy online. The school's official website looked okay, but then she had come across a small discussion forum about it and discovered that it wasn't somewhere she belonged at all. In reality, it was a school full of bullies—kids who were just as likely to kill someone as say hello to them. There were a few photos of students posted, and not one of them looked like someone Eunice would want to come within a mile of. Apparently kids had lost weight at the school because the food was inedible and sometimes downright deadly. There were rumors that two students had quite literally starved to death during the previous school year because they couldn't stomach the food. Eunice knew that she would never survive in a place like that!

She strengthened her resolve and, the next morning, informed her parents that she would most certainly not going to Bullworth Academy. It led to the worst argument of Eunice's life. At first her mother had simply brushed off her concerns and her father tried explaining that they thought it would help her. Things escalated when Eunice refused to back down and wouldn't give in and be quiet. Before long, both she and her mother were shouting at the top of their lungs. Her father stood silently with a look of pure disgust on his face, and her brothers did their best to egg the fight on. The argument finally ended when Kathleen got in her daughter's face and screamed bloody murder, an act that pushed Eunice past her threshold. She reached out and shoved her mother hard against the wall, then she shouted that she was going to kill herself if they sent her to that awful school, and stormed from the room.

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A few hours later, Eunice found herself in the waiting area of the Happy Volts Asylum, tears pooling in her eyes. Her parents had called the cops on her for violence, but they had brought her to the asylum instead of the police station after learning of her so-called suicide threat. She was terrified, unsure of what was going to happen to her in the mental hospital. She never would have thought any good could come out of it; never could have imagined that she'd meet the boy who would change her life.

His name was Gary Smith, and he had a background that was somehow both completely different from and eerily similar to hers. They met during her first group therapy session. She was forced to take the empty seat next to him, at the time just a scary-looking boy with a scarred eyebrow and hollow eyes. Everyone took turns introducing themselves and explaining why they were there. The boy Eunice was sitting by didn't say anything; another girl informed her that his name was Gary.

When it was her turn, Eunice simply told them her name and said that she was there because her family hated her and wanted to ship her off to some messed-up school that she didn't want to go to. Everyone looked at her with sad eyes, waiting for her to say more, and when she didn't, an awkward silence fell upon the group. A few seconds later, Gary uttered the first word he'd said since entering the asylum several weeks earlier: ditto. All eyes turned to him, but he didn't elaborate. The silence continued until one of the supervising therapists announced that group therapy was over for the day.

Gary didn't say anything else to her until almost a week later. It was lunchtime in the asylum, and he suddenly dropped his tray on the table and sank into the seat next to hers. Eunice instantly became self-conscious and began trying to remember to put her food down between bites and chew each mouthful for at least twenty seconds before swallowing. It was a technique she had adopted in elementary school after being teased by her classmates for eating so quickly.

Out of the blue Gary began talking, his voice low and hoarse from disuse. He told her that his mother hated him and wanted him out of her life for good. He said she'd started sending him off to various schools when he was just a toddler because she was scared of him, but he was scared of her too. He told Eunice outright that he was pretty good at reading people and getting them to do what he wanted, but his mother was unpredictable and he'd never been able to get a good grasp on her. Sometimes she'd beat him senseless for no reason at all; other times she'd reward his bad behavior with positive attention and money. He said he was in Happy Volts because the doctors thought he was a sociopath, but really he just liked to control people because nothing was unpredictable when he was the one calling the shots.

Eunice didn't know why he had suddenly decided to tell her all of those things, she didn't even know whether she believed him or not, but she listened quietly until he was finished. When he finally stopped talking, he looked at her with a slight glimmer in his eye, almost as if he were daring her to say something.

Eunice took a deep breath and, fighting the urge to hold her tongue—surely a beanpole like him could never understand a fatso like her—told him her whole story: how her mother secretly accused her of killing her unborn twin, how everyone in her family was embarrassed by her, how she knew they didn't really love her, how they wanted her to go away to a boarding school so they could go back to being the perfect family they had been before she was born. She told him that the kids at school picked on her, that boys only asked her out for a good laugh, that a teacher of all people had once pointed out that she wasn't even lucky enough to be one of those fat people with a pretty face; she was just all around ugly.

When she finished, Gary shook his head and asked what school her parents were planning to send her to. She told him about Bullworth Academy, and he said that he was headed there too, once he got out of the asylum. He'd never been before and didn't know anything about it, so she told him what she had read about it being full of bullies. He laughed and told her not to worry, explaining that over the years he had discovered that bullies were usually quite dumb and easy to manipulate. If she stuck with him, they could probably rule the school before they'd even been there for a full week. Eunice smiled a little at the thought, though she knew it would likely never be more than a fantasy.

The two continued to grow closer during their time at Happy Volts. They talked every day, sharing stories of their pasts and sometimes-Eunice more often than Gary-hopes for their futures. Eunice slowly began letting her guard down around him, eating meals at her normal pace and sometimes even going back up for seconds. Gary began talking a little bit during therapy, being more open and honest with the psychiatrists than he had ever been before.

One day, he silently offered Eunice his hand as they left the group therapy room and headed towards the sitting room to watch TV during their free time. She took it gently, and was warmed from head to toe when he laced his long fingers around hers. The two walked hand-in-hand down the halls of the Happy Volts Asylum, Eunice doing her best not to burst into tears of joy.

She knew good and well that both she and Gary were still slotted to go to Bullworth when they got out, but now she thought that maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay in the end. She knew that she would never have a perfect bikini-ready body, just as she knew Gary would probably never quite relate to others the way he should. But they had each other, and that was far more than either of them had ever had before.

The End!

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Please review!


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